After the docking was abandoned the crew were forced to return to Earth as this version of the Soyuz had no solar panels and power was low. The capsule landed in a frozen lake, in a snowstorm, at night, and sank. The cosmonauts had turned off everything to conserve power and were unable to contact the recovery team. The capsule was too heavy for the helicopter to lift so was dragged to shore, an operation which took nine hours - all the time the recovery team assumed the cosmonauts were dead and had summoned a special team to remove the bodies

Bowen was not on the original crew manifest for STS-133 but Tim Kopra was injured in a bicycle accident six weeks before launch so was replaced by Bowen, enabling him to fly consecutive Shuttle missions

Bondarenko was taking part in a 15-day low-pressure test in a sealed chamber with over 50% oxygen content. On Day Ten he removed some medical sensors from his body and cleaned up the sticky residue with alcohol-soaked cotton wool. However when he threw away the cotton ball it landed on an electrical hotplate and caught fire. Bondarenko tried to beat out the flames but his clothing also caught fire and due to the pressure differential the rescue team could not get to him for thirty minutes, by which time he had suffered third-degree burns over most of his body. He died of shock some sixteen hours later. He was posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Star and a crater on the lunar Farside is named for him.

Details of the accident were hushed up and did not reach the West until 1980. It has been suggested that had NASA been aware of this, they may have changed their own training approach and the Apollo 1 fire might have been avoided.

Kelly is married to the former US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head on 8 January 2011; during her recuperation his place on the STS-134 mission was in doubt but ultimately she recovered sufficiently for him to fly